Brave

Lilah Rose and I had a mother-daughter-date. We have been giddily looking forward to the premier of Brave for over a month. Dano opted out. I was just hoping to make it through one Pixar movie without crying. On the way to the movie, we went over the ground rules of the movie theater - 1) We don't ever scream. 2) We don't ever run away. If Rules 1 or 2 are broken once, she gets a warning. If broken twice, we go home regardless of how much more movie there is left. She told me she understood.

She was jumping up and down and squealing while we were still in the parking lot. Flocks of other little girls made their way inside. I guessed they weren't on their way to see Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Lilah made friends with pretty much all of them.

Once inside, we picked up our tickets (which Lilah insisted on holding) and made our way to the concession counter. She only gets to go to a movie once every couple of months, so we go all out. She got her kid pack of fruit snacks, lemonade, and a tiny bag of popcorn in a happy meal-esque cardboard box. She asked me to carry her tickets so she could carry her armload of snacks and try to find Theater 14. At least 4 people told me how cute she was with her pile of treats as big as she was and her blonde pigtails.

Lilah sat through at least 30 minutes of previews while munching on popcorn and emitting shrieks of commentary. "MINIONS!" "What's a vampire?" "I want to see a movie about a Princess now."
"That isn't about a Princess. What is that, Mama?"
"The Hobbit, baby. When we're done with Ramona, we can read that story book."
"What is that?"
"It's Gollum."
"Can we see that movie?"
"Absolutely."

The traditional Pixar short was La Luna, a beautiful animation of a little boy on the moon.  During the actual film, she was fine.

 Lilah had only two instances of leaving her seat, both to use the bathroom. The toilet seat was too big and she was scared to use it so changed her mind. The second time, I was a bit insistent that she at least try. She tried to gesture with her hands just how much she did not want to use the giant toilet, when she fell in. Our eyes met and it was understood that she would not be using the theater toilet anymore.

Back in the theater, she crawled into my lap, cradled her lemonade, laid her head on my shoulder, and we watched. The movie was unexpectedly lovely. It was primarily about the relationship between mother and daughter so it was great for us and our girls' night. The headstrong teenager just wants her mother to change so she can have her own way and live her own life. In the end, she has to teach, grow with, love, and protect her mother in order to fulfill her destiny. She realizes that her mother spent her whole life loving and believing in her. Princess Merida risks everything to repair the bond that was broken between her and her mother. Lilah and I nuzzled our noses at the same time and she poked at me for the tears on my face. I have cried in the past over movies like Whip It that portray a strained mother-daughter relationship, but they were always tears of anger and bitterness. These were tears of love and happiness to have my sweet daughter. All the old bitter sting is gone from my life, eradicated as if it were never there in the first place.

There was a mother this week whose 21 month old son was dying in the hospital. Rather than accept gifts and flowers, she asked everyone to go out and make a memory with their child. Feed them a banana split for dinner. Do something fun your kids will remember. We took Lilah out yesterday and gave her ice cream for dinner. We talked about how she was blessed to be a healthy little girl with a strong body and doctors who take good care of her. It was difficult to explain that some children were born without healthy, strong bodies and they don't get better when doctors try hard. We were giving thanks for our healthy girl and sending good, happy thoughts to all the children who were sick. Lilah kept calling it our blessings dinner. Ice cream because we had blessings. I ignored the judgey looks from our server when I asked him to bring ice cream before our food and just took comfort in having my family happy and healthy. I know there will be moments when she's angry at me, hates me even. But I'm hoping that like Merida in Brave, she realizes that everything I did, I did for her. Even when mistakes were made and I regretted harsh words, I always loved her more than anything. She's my miracle girl.